Formally called since 2025 The RSAC Conference Award for Excellence in Mathematics, is an annual award. It is announced at the annual RSA Conference in recognition of innovations and contributions in the field of cryptography. An award committee of experts, which is associated with the Cryptographer's Track committee at the RSA Conference (CT-RSA), nominates to the award persons who are pioneers in their field, and whose work has had applied or theoretical lasting value; the award is typically given for the lifetime achievements throughout the nominee's entire career. Nominees are often affiliated with universities or involved with research and development in the information technology industry. The award is cosponsored by the International Association for Cryptologic Research.
While the field of modern cryptography started to be an active research area in the 1970s, it has already contributed heavily to Information technology and has served as a critical component in advancing the world of computing: the Internet, Cellular networks, and Cloud computing, Information privacy, Privacy engineering, Anonymity, Storage security, and Information security, to mention just a few sectors and areas. Research in Cryptography as a scientific field involves the disciplines of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering. The award, which started in 1998, is one of the few recognitions fully dedicated to acknowledging experts who have advanced the field of cryptography and its related areas (another such recognition is achieving the rank of an IACR Fellow).
The first recipient of the award in 1998 was Shafi Goldwasser. Also, many of the award winners have gotten other recognitions, such as other prestigious awards, and the rank of fellow in various professional societies, etc.
Research in Cryptography is broad and is dedicated to numerous areas. In fact, the award has, over the years, emphasized the methodological contributions to the field which involve mathematical research in various ways, and has recognized achievements in many of the following crucial areas of research:
To further read on various aspects of cryptography, from history to areas of modern research, see Books on cryptography.
In addition to the Award for Excellence in Mathematics which recognizes lifetime achievement in the specific area of Cryptographic research, the RSA conference has also presented a separate lifetime achievement awards in the more general field of information security. Past recipients of this award from the field of cryptography include:
Here are a few examples of videos from the award ceremonies and interviews with award winners; these give some more information about each specific award year, and demonstrate the breadth of research behind each such an award:
In 2026 in RSAC conference, the inaugural RSAC Test of Time Awards are dedicated to the application and advancement of cryptography and its impact to the broader cybersecurity community, while honoring the disciplineâÂÂs foundational and innovative role, and are drawn from papers presented in CT-RSA in the past. The 2026 Test of Time Award recognizes papers from the first three years of CT-RSA proceedings (2001-2003), evaluating them based on number of academic citations and the lasting industry impact of the research on the field. There will be two sessions at RSAC 2026 Conference to honor this yearâÂÂs award-winning papers:
Test of Time Papers for 2026 :
(1) Oracle Diffie-Hellman Assumptions and an Analysis of DHIES, published in 2001 as part of the first RSAC Cryptography track in 2001, by: Michel Abdalla, Mihir Bellare, and Phillip Rogaway.
(2) Homomorphic Signature Schemes, published in 2002 by: Robert Johnson, David Molnar, Dawn Song, and David Wagner.